US Supreme Court backs PennEast gas pipeline
The US Supreme Court ruled June 29 in support of a $1bn natural gas pipeline in New Jersey, overriding state concerns about land seizures.
In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling against a consortium of energy companies planning to build the so-called PennEast natural gas pipeline. Federal authorities in 2018 ruled in favor of the project and early surveys were already completed along the planned route in Pennsylvania.
|
Advertisement: The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) NGC’s HSSE strategy is reflective and supportive of the organisational vision to become a leader in the global energy business. |
Phase I of the project outlined a network through Pennsylvania with a scheduled start date in November. Phase II would extend through New Jersey, with an in-service date of 2023.
Developers following the 2018 ruling moved forward with plans to seize property along the route.
New Jersey balked at the seizure and a lower court ruled in its favor, but appeals set the dispute up for a showdown in the nation’s highest court.
Writing the opinion for the majority, chief justice John Roberts argued that eminent domain, the power to seize property, has been a fundamental tool for building a variety of infrastructure projects.
“We are asked to decide whether the federal government can constitutionally confer on pipeline companies the authority to condemn necessary rights-of-way in which a state has an interest,” he wrote. “We hold that it can.”
The 120-mile pipeline could deliver as much as 1.1bn ft3/day of gas from the Marcellus shale basin, part of the broader Appalachia shale that covers parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Ohio.
Anthony Cox, the chairman of the board of the pipeline consortium, said the ruling was a win for regional energy security.
“PennEast understood that New Jersey brought this case for political purposes, but energy crises in recent years in California, Texas, and New England have clearly demonstrated why interstate natural gas infrastructure is so vital for our way of life, public safety, and enabling clean energy goals,” he said.
Pipelines in the US are among the safest ways to deliver natural gas, crude oil and refined petroleum products to end users. But Frank Pallone, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives representing New Jersey, said he was upset with the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“I am deeply disturbed and disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision today, which sets the dangerous precedent of allowing interstate pipelines to take state-owned lands without a state’s consent,” he said. “States like New Jersey should be able to retain their right to do what they wish with the lands they own, and no private actor – including pipeline companies – should be able to usurp that right.”
Pallone is the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The case was PennEast Pipeline Co., LLC v. New Jersey et al. No 19-1039.